Brass: Birmingham

To set up, first separate wild cards from normal cards. For 4 players, use all location and industry cards; for 3 players, use cards with 2 or 3 dots; for 2 players, use cards with 2, 3, or 4 dots. Each player takes a player mat, all game material of their color, 8 shuffled cards, and 17 pounds in coins. Industrial tiles are placed on player mats with the colored side up, matching Roman numerals. Place hexagonal markers on the -10 income track and round markers on the 0 income track. Fill the coal and iron markets on the board with cubes, leaving the bottom row empty for coal and the bottom two rows empty for iron. Place wooden beer barrels on product marketplaces. For 4 players, occupy all merchant spaces; for fewer players, leave the upper half of the board empty. Place draw, wild location, and wild industry card piles on the board. Finally, place character tiles on the bottom-left barrels to determine player order, and use one hand card as a discard pile marker.

The primary objective in Brass: Birmingham is to accumulate the most victory points by the end of the game. This is achieved by strategically building industries, expanding your network of canals and railways, and selling goods to merchants. The game is divided into two eras, Canal and Rail, each with distinct transportation methods and scoring opportunities. Players must adapt their strategies to maximize points in both phases, as industries and links from the Canal era may become obsolete in the Rail era.

During a player's turn, they perform two actions. These actions can be chosen from: building an industry (placing a tile from your mat onto the board), expanding your network (placing a link tile to connect cities), taking a loan (gaining money at the cost of reducing your income), selling goods (flipping an industry tile to generate income and victory points), developing industries (removing lower-level industry tiles from your mat to access higher-level ones), or scouting (drawing wildcards). The very first round is an exception, where each player performs only one action. Most actions require discarding a card, but the card's content doesn't always matter, except for building actions where it must match the location or industry.

Scoring occurs at the end of each era (Canal and Rail) and at the end of the game. Victory points are primarily earned by flipping industry tiles, which increases your income and provides VPs. Network connections (canal and railway links) also contribute VPs based on the industries they connect. Merchant links provide VPs based on their type. At the end of the Canal era, all canal links and Level I industries are removed from the board. The final scoring combines VPs from all remaining flipped industries, network connections, and merchant links. Tiles that were never flipped do not count for VPs.

The game concludes after the second era (Rail era) is completed. An era ends when the main draw pile and all players' hand cards are depleted. At the end of each era, a scoring phase occurs where victory points are calculated from flipped industries and network connections. After the Canal era, all canal links and Level I industries are removed from the board, and players receive new hand cards for the Rail era. The game officially ends after the Rail era's scoring, and the player with the highest total victory points is declared the winner.